1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a substrate processing apparatus and a substrate processing method.
2. Related Art
As an example of a substrate processing apparatus, a wafer is transported via a load port, a load lock chamber, a transport chamber, and a processing chamber, and is processed in the processing chamber. The processing chamber is an independent space shielded by a gate valve, and it is possible to separately process the wafer in each of the chambers.
Generally, when a wafer is processed on a substrate placing base, only one wafer is processed in one chamber. In JP-A-2006-86180, a technique is disclosed in which wafers to be processed are alternately transported to a processing chamber, the processed wafer is replaced by the next wafer to be processed when the processed wafer is returned from each processing chamber to the substrate placing base.
The known substrate processing apparatus is provided with two load lock chambers for stocking wafers, one transports chamber having a robot for transferring the wafers to each chamber, and two processing chambers for processing the wafers. In this configuration for processing substrates, it is difficult to achieve a throughput of over 200 sheets per hour. When a processing chamber is simply added to an outer peripheral portion of the transport chamber to further improve the throughput, it is possible to improve the throughput. However, it is difficult to avoid the size of the transport robot in the transport chamber becoming relatively large, and the foot print being expanded when a further processing chamber is added.